The Irvine Company last week received initial approval for its plans for North Park Square, the final, 156-acre phase of its sprawling North Park development in Irvine and Tustin.
The new project, next to the existing phases of North Park and The Market Place retail complex, calls for 892 homes, four neighborhood parks and a school in Irvine.
Adding interest to the project is the speed with which the Irvine Co. moved last week to secure Irvine Planning Commission approval,just days before an expected change in the commission’s membership. And it raises the possibility that the project could be an early test of relations between the Irvine Co. and incoming Mayor Larry Agran.
Agran often was at odds with the company in his prior stint as mayor during the 1980s and is viewed as being hostile to developers. Agran was being sworn in as mayor this week along with two new council allies, Chris Mears and Beth Krom, who are expected to form a 3-2 council majority. Since each council member appoints a planning commissioner, the new commission is expected to reflect the same 3-2 philosophical split.
Agran was not available for comment late last week.
Just in time for the current commission’s final meeting, the Irvine Co. filed for more than two dozen separate approvals for North Park Square. The filings, all residential in nature, included 13 tentative tract maps and 13 related resolutions.
Irvine Co. spokesman Michael Stockstill downplayed the significance of the mass filings, noting that the initial application for North Park Square had been filed with the commission back on July 13 and that it was not unprecedented for the company to “bundle” subsequent project filings. He termed the timing of the filings and the council changes a coincidence, and said, “There hasn’t been any particular effort or rush.”
Stockstill also noted that the Irvine Co. couldn’t circumvent the will of the new City Council even if it wanted to, since any planning commission decisions can be appealed to the council.
Sheri Vander Dussen, the city’s director of community development, said her staff’s handling of the project was proceeding at the usual pace. She said the bundling of filings, while a relatively new practice, was one that the Irvine Co. has undertaken in earlier phases of North Park, too, though on a somewhat smaller scale.
But some sources close to the city approval process, who asked for anonymity, said the scope of the company’s filings was indeed unusual and was being timed with the current Planning Commission’s final meeting in order to secure approval before a new panel takes over.
The sources noted that by getting the Planning Commission approval now, the Irvine Co. would eliminate one potential hurdle in the process, and would also avoid the risk of delays that might be caused by a new commission whose members are not as familiar with the details of the North Park project.
Even Stockstill conceded as much, saying of the old commission prior to its last meeting: “This is a commission that knows the project and will have the ability to move expeditiously.”
North Park Square is slated for the quadrant, now primarily agricultural, bounded by the Eastern (261) Toll Road, Culver Drive, Bryan Avenue and Irvine Boulevard. n
